buttercups
by Nelauk
Summary: Short one shot on the child who would become Chara. fem!Chara


**a/n: i'm not terribly enlightened on the events in undertale so forgive me if i make any mistakes. if i get a detail wrong please tell me and i'll fix it!**

A girl and her mother were walking through the woods, the girl bounding ahead of her and the mother walking behind, with a content smile on her face. It was late in the day. The pair was returning from the marketplace in the nearby town, where they had bought some food for the coming winter.

The daughter, who had grown impatient during the trip, turned and asked her mother how far they were from home. The mother answered that they were only a short ways from now, and that'd they would be home before nightfall.

The daughter, reassured by this knowledge, continued to walk along, but with more skip in her step.

After a while the mother decided that they should stop and eat, as it was dinnertime. They had a picnic in the clearing, and at that moment, as the crickets came to the life and the sun lowered in the sky, all was peaceful. The mother sang a song and the daughter laughed and sang along with her. They picked some buttercups to plant in their garden. The mother smiled as she watched her daughter try to catch fireflies.

Suddenly the mother gasped then, her eyes transfixed on something behind her daughter.

The daughter looked at her, confused, before turning around.

Standing tall in front of them were a ragged band of bandits. The leader, with a snaggled-tooth grin, crept forward.

The daughter cried out as one of the bandits grabbed her. The mother, yelling with fear and anger, tackled the brute who had grabbed her daughter. The girl was sent tumbling to the ground.

The mother tried her very hardest to fight off the bandits, but they all overpowered her. With her final breath, the mother screamed for her daughter to run, before a knife sliced her throat.

Sobbing now, the girl ran off into the forest. Twigs and branches cut at her legs, and dust got into her face, but she ran anyway.

The night arrived. The girl, who had hidden in a thicket, eventually came out. Wiping her tear streaked face, she listened for any sound of the bandits following. Luckily they weren't, so the girl walked back the way she had ran.

She came to the clearing where they had been attacked, and there, among the scattered food and blankets, was her mother.

Screaming in anguish, the girl ran to the side and shook her desperately. But she had succumbed to her injury a long time ago-now she laid there, lifeless, her throat black with blood.

For what seemed to be hours the girl wept into her mother's chest. She was only interrupted when she saw a glint in the corner of her eye.

She looked up and squinted into the darkness. Lying on the ground was the knife that had taken her mother's life. It had been tossed aside by the bandits.

At the sight something woke up in the girl. Slowly she got up and picked up the knife. As she turned it in her hand she remembered her mother's scream. The blood gushing out of her throat. The cackling of the bandits.

At that point the girl realized what she must do. She followed the trail of the bandits and found their camp not too far off. Gripped with a deep and terrible fury, she killed all of them as they slept. As the girl stood above the now dead leader, her clothes dripping with his blood, she felt a sudden thrill of pleasure. It scared her, but at the same time she welcomed it.

Now weighed with a new conviction, the girl walked to the village. There they learned of the death of her mother and sent her to an orphanage in the city.

The orphanage was a cruel place. The nuns who ran it were harsh and vicious, and the children even more so. After many long months the girl decided she couldn't take it anymore and ran away.

Now wandering aimlessly in the wilderness, she realized that her life wouldn't go anywhere now. She didn't belong anywhere...and besides, she had came to hate humanity, after all they had done to her.

The place left for her, she decided, was the nearby mountain. During her stay at the orphanage she had heard the legends about it: that whoever would try to scale its flanks would never return, that the evil monsters who had been sealed in the great war lived up there...

It was perfect.

So the girl climbed up the mountain, until she had reached its very peak. It had started to rain and the girl was feeling terribly cold; the clothes she was wearing at the moment wouldn't do anything to protect against this weather. Upon finding a cave she immediately sought refuge inside.

Inside it was warm, if somewhat humid. The girl, curious, explored the dark cavern. After navigating all sorts of meandering, rocky tunnels the she came across something quite extraordinary.

The girl stumbled upon a huge chamber. In the floor was a great yawning hole-extending from one end of the chamber to the other, it took the girl's breath away. Curiosity got the better of her and she crept forward, wanting to see where it lead...

...and so it was because of curiosity that the girl tripped on a root and fell into the underground realm of the monsters.

For a while she didn't wake up. Dreams both wonderful and terrible drifted through her mind. Memories of planting flowers in the garden with her mother, the snaggled-tooth grin of the bandit leader, the cruel laughter of the children, the sound of her mother's scream….

When she woke up she found herself lying in a bed of flowers. Buttercups, to be precise. Her mother's favorite.

She felt the urge to weep again, but she couldn't, because her body had taken quite the beating. The best she could do was call out for help-and help eventually did come...in the form of a monster.

He was around her size, with white fur and long ears. He seemed harmless; in fact, he looked downright concerned.

Eventually the girl found herself carried to the monster's home. His mother was kind and baked a butterscotch pie for her. The father was nice too, but she couldn't help but detect a hint of suspicion in his voice.

Soon this monster boy's home became her new home as well. She ended up becoming close friends with him. The mother monster had practically taken her in, though she could never replace the one she had lost, and the father began to warm up to her as well.

The girl had always thought monsters were like the hideous, evil brutes in the legends, who ate the flesh of children and ravaged villages. But now that she was living with a family of them...she realized that the humans were in the wrong.

All the more reason to hate them, of course.

Ever since her mother's death the girl began to feel content, happy even. She played and tumbled about with the boy in the buttercup patch, and sat near the fireplace with him in the living room, while the mother read to them from that boring snail book of hers. Sometimes they would leave home and journey around the underground, seeing all the sights and monsters that populated it.

Her life, the girl thought, could be taking a turn for the better after all.

However, the girl never forgot that day. She was still plagued with nightmares. She still remembered her knife meeting the bandit's throat, the rush she felt after killing them all. Dark urges took her sometimes; once she had put poisonous buttercup flowers in the pie and ended up leaving the father monster bedridden for many months. She thought more than often about the thrill of taking a life, about getting revenge on humanity….

It all came to a head one day, when the girl and the boy were playing in the ruins. She brought up the idea of going to the surface and destroying all the humans.

This scared the boy, of course, so he laughed it off, hoping she was joking. But the girl was serious, quite serious….

The days passed. The girl set the plan into motion, with the boy reluctantly joining in. She told him about using the combined power of their SOULs to exact vengeance. To do this she would eat the buttercup flowers in the garden so the boy could take her SOUL, then they would travel up to the surface. Once they were there the two of them would absorb six others, then they would become so powerful that they would both turn humanity into ashes. They would break the barrier and free the monsters. It would be wonderful, so _wonderful._

Then one night as the girl was sleeping she had a dream of her mother. She looked so real and alive. The girl heard her soft voice, telling her how much she loved and missed her. Upon waking up the girl was consumed with grief. Wanting more than ever to begin her plan, and to see her mother again, she ran to the boy's room and convinced him to give her the buttercups.

The girl fell violently ill afterward. In her last moments she saw the faces of the boy's parents, wet with tears, begging her not to leave them. Then the boy, sobbing as well, promising that he would carry out her plan, just like she wanted, and that he would bring her up to the surface and lay her on her favorite patch of flowers in the village.

It began. The girl felt her soul leaving her body and fusing with the boy's. They went up to the surface and to the village of her youth. She saw the townsfolk, going about their business, happy and carefree.

For a moment, the girl reconsidered her plan. After all, she had so many fond memories in that village….

The boy came out into the center of the town and laid her body down on the bed of flowers, just like she had wanted.

Then the humans saw him. Believing that the boy had been the one that had killed her, they came at him with all the weapons they had. Just as the girl thought, humanity was beyond redemption. She would kill them all. But as she tried to harness control of the boy he decided to resist, much to her shock. With only a smile on his face, he left the village grievously injured. He came back to his parent's home and died in the throne room, his dust spreading over the buttercups.

As for the girl, she was left hurt. Angry. _Betrayed._ The boy, whom she had been so close to, like a sibling, only to betray her like this? No, she wouldn't have it.

She would get her revenge somehow. Some way. The girl decided to become a ghost, waiting for the right person to come along. She didn't care how long it would take. Once she found that person she would take control of them and finally, _finally,_ avenge her mother's death. Then once that was over she would no longer feel so tormented anymore. She would be at peace. She would be with her dear mother again.

 _Yes,_ thought Chara. _I will wait. For as long as I need to._


End file.
